A mail insertion system or a “mailpiece inserter” is commonly employed for producing mailpieces intended for mass mail communications. Such mailpiece inserters are typically used by organizations such as banks, insurance companies and utility companies for producing a large volume of specific mail communications where the contents of each mailpiece are directed to a particular addressee. Also, other organizations, such as direct mailers, use mailpiece inserters for producing mass mailings where the contents of each mailpiece are substantially identical with respect to each addressee.
In many respects, a typical inserter system resembles a manufacturing assembly line. Sheets and other raw materials (i.e., a web of paper stock, enclosures, and envelopes) enter the inserter system as inputs. Various modules or workstations in the inserter system work cooperatively to process the sheets until a finished mail piece is produced. Typically, inserter systems prepare mail pieces by arranging preprinted sheets of material into a collation, i.e., the content material of the mail piece, on a transport deck. The collation of preprinted sheets may continue to a chassis module where additional sheets or inserts may be added based upon predefined criteria, e.g., an insert being sent to addressees in a particular geographic region. Subsequently, the collation may be folded and placed into envelopes. Once filled, the envelopes are closed, sealed, weighed, and sorted. A postage meter may then be used to apply postage indicia based upon the weight and/or size of the mail piece.
The capacity, configuration and features of each inserter system depend upon the needs of each customer and/or installation. Until recently, mailpiece inserters were limited to two basic configurations, i.e., low-volume inserters capable of producing between about 5K-10K mailpieces monthly, and high-volume inserters capable of producing in excess of 100K mailpieces daily. To contrast the differences in greater detail, low volume inserters may occupy the space of a conventional office copier and generally will cost less than about twenty-thousand dollars ($20,000). High-volume inserters may extent over 100 feet in length and cost in excess of five million dollars ($5,000,000). Only recently have manufacturers introduced models having an intermediate capacity, i.e., producing between 50K-100K mailpieces monthly. Exemplary models fulfilling these specifications are the DI 900 and DI 950 Model inserters produced by Pitney Bowes Inc., located in Stamford, Conn., USA.
These inserters, whether in the low, intermediate or high-volume classes, typically require the use of “preprinted” sheets which are presented to the various downstream devices by a feed module for subsequent processing. While it has long been desirable to print mailpiece content material “on-demand”, or “just in time”, difficulties associated with matching the throughput, i.e., of the printer and downstream devices, have essentially prohibited printer integration. For example, when the print rate exceeds the processing rate of the downstream inserter devices, e.g., the speed that the machine inserts mailpiece content into an envelope, the sheets of content material either jam or are out-sorted. When the print rate lags behind the throughput rate of such devices, the productivity of the overall inserter degrades or diminishes. Even relatively small deviations in the rate of throughput can result in the aforementioned difficulties. Moreover, the print rate of standard printers, driven by commercially available application software, is essentially fixed. That is, there is no ability to vary the rate of printing for the purpose of synchronizing or matching the print rate to the rate of mailpiece creation.
A need therefore exists for a method and system for throttling the print rate of mailpiece content material to optimize throughput of a mailpiece inserter.